As the Seventh Month Dies
by Mr. Phich
Summary: 31 drabbles for the seventh month, exploring all Harry was and could have been. Complete. Part one of the Prophecy Series.
1. The Difference

_Warnings: This is utterly canon- including epilogue. However, I'm taking liberties with the inbetween bits. There will be slashy undertones, mentions of neglect, angst, bad language_

_7/1- The Difference_

Harry decided, quite promptly, that he loved magic. It was filled with the friendly chaos and imagination he had craved his entire childhood. It was disordered and made perfect sense. It came as naturally to Harry as walking. He could do this. He could learn to love this world, with it's strangeness and it's beauty.

Everything- even violence- was tinged with beauty in this world, as though magic softened all edges.

Harry wouldn't change anything about his new world- not the fact that his parents were dead, or that he was famous, or that bratty Malfoy.

Because it was stunning.

And different.


	2. Laughter Worth Two Years of Tears

_7/2- Laughter worth two years of tears_

After the war, Harry finally got that tattoo of the Hungarian Horntail. Ginny came with him. They hunted down a tattoo parlor with a good reputation. It was on the second anniversary that they finally did it. It was a gloomy little place at the edge of knockturn alley, so they didn't tell Molly what they were doing. They both ditched off the many parties, and Harry skipped the press conference he was supposed to attend. The tattoo artist, an old, serious sort of guy, thought it was the greatest thing since Merlin and helped them plan it every step of the way- from escaping their various responsibilities to the color of the scales.

It hurt like fuck.

But when it was done and Harry and Ginny stood in front of the mirror, his shirt doffed, laughing, Harry knew it was worth all the planning.

It had been two years since either of them had laughed like this.


	3. Temperment

_7/3- Temperment_

It was cold in the cupboard. A bone-aching, heart stilling kind of cold. Not only during the winter, but certainly then more than any other time. The little boy, no more than five, and not really sure what his name was, didn't shiver though. He sat on the little mattress, a raggedy blanket around his shoulders like some sort of cape. He stared at the locked door, watching as passing feet in the hall, cast shadows in his cave.

And he laughed, because if he didn't, he would go cold.

And he hated being cold.


	4. Fear

_7/4- Fear_

Harry would never tell anyone that he had wet his pants when he faced down the basilisk. No one could have noticed, through all the grime and blood that covered him. But no one could know that he was afraid. Even at only twelve, Harry understood that fear was unacceptable. It wasn't allowed- not for him.

He had to be strong for everybody who couldn't be. He couldn't bow his head, and he couldn't show fear.

He had to face down Voldemort and basilisks and save lives.

So he pretended he wasn't a child.

That he wasn't afraid.


	5. Fatherhood

_7/5- Fatherhood_

Harry cradled his son, looking down at him with awe. That he and Ginny had created this new and wonderful life…so pure, so innocent…so fragile.

"Isn't he beautiful?" Ginny asked tiredly.

Harry could only nod dumbly. His son was red and wrinkled, but he had never seen anything more beautiful.

"What should we call him?"

"James," Ginny answered softly. "He looks like a James."

"James Sirius Potter."


	6. Malfoys

_7/6- Malfoys_

Harry gripped Draco Malfoy's shoulder as their two sons, Albus and Scorpius, walked down the aisle together, looking happier than Harry had ever seen them.

They glowed with promise, their faces bright and smiling. Harry had never seen a more glorious sight. He had never imagined twenty years ago that his son might come to marry Draco's son, but it had been coming for a long time- probably since Al had turned eleven. Al and Scorp- Scorp and Al. They were inseparable- they had done everything together since they were both sorted into Ravenclaw. At first, Harry hadn't known what to think about Al being friends with Scorpius, but he was so happy, so full of enthusiasm, that it spilled into Harry.

And now, he could easily say he was proud to be Scorpius' father-in-law, and there was no one else, no other family, that Harry would want his son married too.


	7. Mummy

_7/7- Mummy_

Harry Potter hated thunderstorms. They were loud and scary and shook the door of his cupboard. They were even worse than Uncle Vernon when he was mad. He knew they couldn't touch him, but they were so...angry. It was when thunderstorms raged outside that Harry wanted badly to climb into bed with his Aunt and Uncle like Dudley did. He had tried once.

He hadn't ever again.

So he huddled alone in his cupboard with his raggedy blanket and hummed to himself.

It didn't block it out.

He was so scared.

He just wanted his Mummy.


	8. Time

_7/8- Time_

Harry Potter died in his sleep. It wasn't the way anyone expected him to go, but it was the way he had always pictured it. During those long hard months of hunting Horcruxes, through the years of the war- and the harder years after, Harry dreamed of a quiet death. Not a death filled with pomp or adventure... just something quiet, unassuming. He didn't want to sacrifice himself for a loved one. He didn't want to go down fighting.

He wanted to die an old man, asleep in his bed, beside his wife.

He got what he wanted.


	9. Lily

_7/9_- _Lily_

When Lily ran away from home, it broke Harry's heart. He wondered what he had done wrong. When had he turned into a bad parent- a parent that would drive his own daughter away? Ginny and he cried together, before composing themselves and sending for the Aurors, calling Teddy, James and Albus from their apartments and rooms, and set out to find her. It wasn't until next week, in the midst of a thunderstorm, that their baby reappeared. She hesitantly came in the door, soaked from head to toe. Harry rushed for a towel, using drying and warming charms, while Ginny went into her famous tirades.

Lily tearfully admitted that she had left for a boy. Harry saw the bruises. He saw the cut. He saw the torn clothes.

How had he let this happen to his daughter, his precious baby girl?


	10. Unforgiven

_7/10- Unforgiven_

_Dear Professor Lupin, _Harry wrote one tired and hot afternoon not a month after Sirius died. He had received a letter from Mrs. Weasley, telling him that Remus thought Harry was angry at him. And he was, but probably not for the reasons the lycanthrope thought.

With a frustrated sigh, Harry let the pain that had plagued him since he found out who Remus was, pour out onto the page.

_Mrs. Weasley tells me you think that I blame you for Sirius' death. I do not. I don't see how I could. I do blame you for other things. I blame you for not trying harder to find me. I blame you for not telling me you were my father's friend. I blame you for never being more than my Professor. I blame you for being the first person to listen to me with affection and respect, and then leaving me all alone, in a world that had turned on its head. I blame you for never hugging me or being what you could have been to me. I blame you for letting your fear get in the way of being there for me. _

_For these things I will always blame you, though I could never blame you for Sirius. In that, the blame lies on me, and I am sorry for losing you your last friend. _

_With deepest respect and compassion, _

_Harry Potter. _

Harry never sent the letter. Years later, when Teddy was an adult with two sons of his own, he gave the letter to him when he asked why Harry always called Remus Professor Lupin.


	11. Remnants of War

_7/11- Remnants of War_

Harry let Ginny hold him on the nights when the terrors came. It didn't help him, but it helped her to have someone to hold, someone to love. When the terrors came for her, he returned the favor, though he couldn't understand how a hold, a restriction could make the tension seep from her frame. On nights when the terrors came, the last thing Harry wanted was to be held prisoner, even by love.


	12. Remembrance

_7/12 – Remembrance _

The Weasley Picnic became something of a tradition over the years. It started shortly after Harry and Ginny got married. All the Weasleys, a group which grew bigger and bigger with each passing month, would meet on the lawn of Harry's house in Godric's Hollow.

They ate on large blankets with the summer sun-warmed grass freshening the air. Mrs. Weasley would provide the food, George the fireworks. They would gather at noon, and spend the afternoon eating and swimming and playing and laughing. As the sun began to set, the mood would turn somber for an hour (never more and never less). For an hour, they shared stories and told tales. They remembered the days of terror, and those who had died. The children listened in silent respect, awed by the sacrifice their parents and grandparents had given them. When the hour was over, the music started and they danced until they couldn't anymore.

The evening always ended with a spectacular display of Weasley Wizard Wheezes Wheezing Fireworks.


	13. The Boy and the Man

_7/13 -The Boy and the Man_

Watching his children grow was somewhat a mixed experience for Harry. As a father, he looked on his children and he was proud. They were happy. They had a family that loved them. They were smart, healthy and beautiful. He looked at them and saw his dearest dream made real. They made him happier than anything ever had.

Deep inside him, where the boy who he used to be, alone and unloved in the cupboard under the stairs, was jealous. That boy looked on these children with a burning envy, that they had everything that he had never had.

Mostly, though, Harry was the father.


	14. Questions

_7/14- Questions_

"So, where were you three?" It was an innocent question. Lots of people asked it. Mrs. and Mr. Weasley. Ginny. Neville. Luna. George.

They all deserved an answer, but Harry couldn't tell them. The horror of the dark nights, the deep-rooted terror Horcruxes brought to mind...these were things that belonged only to the three of them. Only to that time and eachother. It couldn't be shared.

And why would they share it?

Why would they ever risk Horcruxes on the rest of the world? Hermione had made it her personal mission to get rid of any knowledge of Horcruxes that still existed. Harry admired her bravery -he never wanted to face Horcruxes ever again.

Was that cowardly?

Was it wrong?

Harry didn't know. He asked himself every damn day, and he still didn't know.


	15. Teddy

_7/15- Teddy_

"Bye cub." Harry said quietly to Teddy in the uproar of Platform 9 and 3/4.

"Harry?" Teddy asked quietly.

"Yes?"

"What if I don't like it there?"

"Then you can run away and come live with me. We won't tell your Gran," Harry reassured softly. Teddy's hair was a unusually somber brown, and his eyes were his father's blue eyes. Harry could tell that his godson really was nervous. "But I bet you'll love it. I promise."

"Yes, Harry."

"And you have Bronwyn?" Harry asked, naming Teddy's owl.

"Yes."

"Then you owl me as soon as you're sorted, alright? Now, hurry on or you'll miss the train. I love you."

Harry hugged his godson, and just as he expected, was down one ancient map when the boy withdrew. Harry sighed. He would miss the little brat.


	16. Daddy

_7/16- Daddy_

_(Follow up to Mummy.)_

Harry hadn't meant too. Not really.

He had thought that he had long since grow out of the childish need for comfort during storms. But still, when thunder raged outside, he reverted to that little boy in the cupboard who wanted his Mummy. At Hogwarts he huddled in his bed, buried under the covers and recited spells to himself until the storm quieted. No one had ever suspected this fear, this deep-rooted terror that had less to do with storms than being left alone when he was scared.

So, when he climbed ito bed beside Sirius one night while he was staying at Grimmauld Place, he wasn't really sure what he was doing.

"Harry?" Sirius murmured when he felt the bed dip ad saw the dim form of his godson in the light of the flashing lightning outside. Harry stiffened and pulled back.

"No, don't go, kiddo. What's the matter?" Harry just shrugged. Sirius sat up and looked carefully at his godson, noting how very young he looked.

"Did the storm scare you?" Harry stiffened and gave a tiny nod. Sirius pulled his godson in close to him and pillowed Harry's head on his chest. He spoke softly until the storm quieted.

Just as Harry was drifting off, Sirius thought he heard Harry murmur, "Daddy."


	17. Albus Severus

_7/17- Albus Severus_

Harry always knew he wanted to name one of his sons after Albus. For all the hurt and misunderstanding between the two of them in Albus' last couple years of life, and the year after his death too, Albus was as close to a father as Harry had known. He respected Albus with all his might and had wanted no more than to please him. To make him proud.

Ginny and Harry's first son- James Sirius- was a bundle of trouble. Right from the beginning, he was noisy and demanding. Harry knew right away that he could not call this boy Albus. Their second son was different. When he came to them, he stared at everything silently- considering, it seemed to Harry, this new place he had been brought too. _This _was Albus.

It was Ginny who suggested that Al's middle name should be Severus.

Harry started, and turned to her, Al still in his arms. Still silent. Still thoughtful. Though Harry had done his best to clear Severus' name, most people still didn't forgive him. Even Ginny didn't think much of him.

"Why?"

She hesitated a moment. She tucked a sweat soaked lock of hair behind her ear. The birth had been a hard one, Harry thought, harder than James'. "You call for him sometimes. In your sleep."

"I do?"

"You do."


	18. Return

_7/18- Return_

Late that night, Hermione fast asleep in the tent, Harry turned to Ron, and demanded, "Why didn't you stay gone?"

"What do you mean? Didn't...Didn't you want me to come back?" Ron sounded hurt. Harry turned, staring into the gloomy night.

"You should have stayed away. You were safer when you were away. I wish I could have..."

They sat in silence for a long time.


	19. Molly

_7/19- Molly_

Harry started making Mother's Day cards for Molly in first year. It wasn't a Wizarding tradition. Harry had asked Ron about Mother's Day and Ron looked at him like he was mad.

"Why would there be a day for mothers?"

But Harry didn't give up doing it. The first one he ever made was a simple crayon drawing of him and her on a folded piece of parchment, along with a quick note, thanking her for being so kind to him. In later years, the cards grew more elaborate, as his drawing skills grew better. He included ink sketches and long letters about what he was doing and learning. Even when he was on the run in Seventh Year, he took the time to make something- just a charcoal drawing on a spare piece of parchment.

After Hogwarts and the war, the cards changed again. For a while, he bought silly muggle cards and inscribed them. Then he returned to hand drawn cards. Mostly he put them in envelopes and addressed them to _My Mother_, but sometimes he just folded them up. The year after he had married Ginny, Harry went to visit Molly on mother's day.

Like always, she welcomed him with a hug, and sat him down to feed him, complaining that he was as scrawny as ever, and wasn't her daughter feeding him properly?

Harry laughed and asked her, "Don't you know? I'm the cook in our family."

They exchanged pleasantries and caught up, before Harry came to the point.

"Molly- in the Muggle world there's a day for honoring mothers. People make cards, or call or generally pay closer attention to their mothers on that day. I...," slowly he turned and pulled out the stack of cards. Some were yellowed with age. Some were smeared with tears.

He gently kissed her cheek as she stared down at the pile of cards, a lone tear streaking down her face.

"I just wanted you to know."


	20. Hurting

_7/20- Hurting_

"Harry," Hermione's familiar voice called from the floo. Harry groaned, his head splitting. He carefully raised his head from the table and blinked blearily at the bottle of Ogden's Finest on the table.

"Oh Harry, not again." Hermione sighed from the doorway, one hand on her hip, the other clutching a hangover cure. For all her exasperation, she had expected this. The Weasley Family dinner had been last night. Harry had yet to bring himself there. Or anywhere really. But it was the nights when he was supposed to go somewhere- dinner with Ginny, speeches he had to give, Weasley Family dinner, even nights on the town with the boys when he got really plastered.

It was those nights that he stood in the doorway, unable to take that step out of the wards of Grimmauld Place. Sometimes he could stand there, or in front of the floo, for hours. He wanted to leave, but he couldn't.

It wasn't safe. Someone would get him if he left.

Hermione gently brought him hangover cures, and helped him in to showers. She cleaned up spilt drink and tucked him into bed. Sometimes she stayed with him, her head pillowed on his chest and told him muggle faerie tales. Sometimes she just held him while he cried.

She never berated him. She never tried to get him to leave the house.

That day as they lay together, the week sunlight on their faces, he asked her why.

"I understand. I think...if I were you...well, I would not be so strong."

"I wouldn't be so strong if not for you," Harry confessed. It was the closest he ever got to telling anyone about the night he had held his wand to his temple.


	21. Grattitude

_7/21- Grattitude_

The Muggle world was a haven for Harry right up 'til the day he died. There, he could walk unseen, unnoticed. He didn't have to worry about the paparazzi, or fans, or even those people who just wanted to thank him.

He didn't really need thanks. Really, killing Voldemort was a pretty selfish thing to do. He just wanted it all to be over when he did it. He didn't want to be thanked.

Which is why he liked the muggle world so much. There he was given false thanks by store-owners, or absent-minded thanks from people he held doors open for. But there, in the anonymity of that world, he wasn't ever given true thanks. The sort of thanks that means, _You have truly changed my life _or _You saved me from certain death _or, even worse, _I know lots of people who died, but I'm just glad to alive. _Those sort of thanks were hard to bear. He didn't want grattitude, he just wanted peace, just like the rest.


	22. Pride

_7/22- Pride_

It wasn't so much a matter of self-knowledge, like Harry let Ginny tell people. It wasn't, as Hermione had subtly suggested on many occasions, a chance to connect to something he had never had. It wasn't even that it connected him to Sirius, though Harry recognized that as a motivation too.

No, it was pride.

Pride drove him to that cemetery every fourth Sunday. There wasn't a lot Harry was proud of, though he had every right to be a proud man. He was proud of his wife, and his kids and the civilians who survived the war. He was proud of Ron and Hermione for getting together before they were too old to reproduce.

But this, this was his only selfish pride.

Because Harry, with all the certainty of a little boy who had never grown up, was sure that his parents were the very best ones to ever live.


	23. Telling Tales, part one

_7/23- Telling Tales, part one_

Harry slipped into the hospital room as dusk fell heavy. Ginny had taken a shaken Al and Lily home to fix them dinner and generally coddle them. Harry conjured a soft arm chair, reminiscent of the ones Albus had used to conjure. He sat down.

In the foggy half light of candles and muted sunlight, he watched James' chest rise and fall. Eventually James spoke.

"I s'pose this is where you tell me this is what I get for doing M?" James said, face unrecognizable in anger.

"No."

"I don't see how you could understand, anyway. You don't understand what it's like, to be the son of _the_ Harry Potter, perfect golden boy who saved the whole fucking world. I'm not perfect." James ranted angrily. He came to a stop, wheezing softly.

"I know you're not. I'm not either. And I know it's hard."

James snorted and turned his face away.


	24. Telling Tales, part two

_7/24- Telling Tales, part two_

Harry watched his son sadly for a moment. He looked broken in that hospital bed, but he also looked angry. His face was pale and his eyes dark. He had almost died. His stupid, stubborn son. Overdosing, of all the ways to go... Picked, of course, for the stupid imperfection of it. Get as far as you could from perfect. Harry knew the feeling well.

Harry had been the one to find him, barely breathing on the floor of the shed in a puddle of spilled M. His stupid, stubborn boy.

"I'm going to tell you a story, Jamie, like I used to do when you were little. Once upon a time, there was a little boy. He wasn't anything special. He lived with his relatives who were mean, and he made average grades and all he wanted was maybe one friend. Just one would do, he thought. It would be nice to have a friend and someone who smiled at him, once and a while. And then one day, a man came, and he took this little boy to a whole new world, where everything was different, and he didn't really understand it, but he knew that the man was his friend. And really, that made it alright.

"But then, he started to notice how people looked at him. Like he was perfect, or special, or something. He didn't really understand at first, but understanding came quickly. This new world expected him, little old him, to be perfect, to be a hero. He wasn't allowed to show them that he wasn't perfect, that he was just...just a boy. Just him, really. And that scared him. Sometimes, he even had nightmares, where everybody was looking at him, expecting something great. And he couldn't give it to him. And all the little boy wanted, still, was a friend."

Harry got up and gently kissed Jamie's head, ruffling his red curls with the other hand. On his way out, he shut the lights off, calling "Goodnight, my son. I love you."

And all was quiet.


	25. Love

_7/25- Love_

Harry's first friend was a little girl who lived two streets over. Her name was Elizabeth. They were friends, secretly, for nearly five years. But her dad killed her. Harry knew, even if the Bobbies ruled it an accident. He knew.

'Cause he had always loved Elizabeth, for always and forever they used to say. She had known about Uncle Vernon, and he had known about her Dad, even if they never said anything.

And he loved Elizabeth 'til the day he died, more than he had ever loved any other woman.


	26. In the Dark

_7/26- In the Dark_

After the final battle, there was a period when Harry couldn't quite think straight. It was before the crippling fear that made him retreat from the world, and after the deep-rooted terror of the months of hunting. It was as though he was stumbling around in the dark, all dazed as he went from award funeral to award ceremony, from graveyard to the Minister's office, unable to feel anything but fatigue. It was just dark, as if everything was very far away.

But then, Harry had always liked the dark.


	27. Happy

_7/27- Happy_

It occured to Harry, one day, halfway into his first semester at Hogwarts that he was happy. Really happy, for the first time in his life.

He really liked being happy.


	28. A Helping Hand

_7/28- A Helping Hand_

Harry stumbled over a tree root coming back from relieving himself one dark night sometime in his Seventh Year. That's how he thought of it, even though it wasn't, not really. His ragged jeans ripped and he tore up his knee and palms pretty bad. Hissing, Harry inspected the damage in the dim light of the moon. It looked bad.

"Need a hand, Harry?" Ron asked, looking down his thin, crooked, freckled nose with a friendly, teasing glint in his blue eyes.

Harry sighed, rolled his eyes and nodded.

Ron held out one pale hand and Harry gripped with his. Ron hauled him to his feet.

For a moment, they stood there, in the silvery moonlight, hands clasped between them.


	29. Why does she cry?

_7/29- Why does she cry?_

"Daddy?" Lily's read, curly head peeked around the corner into his study. Harry looked up from his book and set it beside him. He patted the space beside him on the couch.

"Yes Lily?" He asked his five-year-old daughter as she clambered up beside him.

"Why does Mommy cry?"

Harry frowned, looking down at his daughter's innocent face.

"What do you mean, baby?"

"She looks at pic-tures sometimes, and she cries. Howcome?"

"Mommy...mommy cries because she's remembering."

"Does 'membering hurt?" Lily asked, nose scrunched with honest confusion.

"Yes, princess. Sometimes it does."


	30. Words

_7/30-Words_

"I'm not very good with words," Harry said to the gathered crowd. Politicians, friends, family, reporters, strangers...children, adults...they all looked at him with the same expression. _Longing_. They wanted so badly to be reassured. "I've had friends offer to write this speech for me, because they were certain I would mess it up." Hesitant laughter gathered. "But I didn't need that, because I've had this speech written since the end of my first year at Hogwarts."

A sudden, eerie silence fell. Harry caught Hermione's surprised gaze and offered a smile.

"There were a lot of people who thought they could keep me innocent. The thought they could give me one more year to be a child. But I knew. I knew that someday, I would face Lord Voldemort," A violent hiss shook the crowd, but Harry ignored it and continued, "That it would be him at the other end of my wand when I lived. Or when I died.

"For me, it was never about holding the wand that killed him. It was just about making it to the next day, making it to the next happy moment. I lived through the fear so that I could experience joy. We have lost much. Much too much. Too many have died, and all of us, from the smallest child to the oldest man, has been changed by what Voldemort has done to us. But we lived through that fear, and now we must look for the joy in our lives. Because for each moment of joy that we experience we honor the fallen.

"But these are just words. Just words from a teenage boy, who finds joy in Quidditch and mastering a new spell. So, I'm asking you to look for your own joy, and live these words. And then, then we make them more than words."


	31. Happy Birthday

_7/31- Happy Birthday_

Harry Potter had one hundred and twenty-seven birthdays, all told. For many people, birthdays were days of selfish enjoyment. Harry didn't learn how to do that until much later in life, so there was always apart of him that recognized his birthday as a day just like any other. Just one more day of living. Just one more day of _life_, full of joy and sorrow, to be loved and celbrated just as it was.

And really, that was what it was.

_The End. _


End file.
